Do you know when the expected release date for it is?
The expected release date was Christmas of last year.� What's happened since then is that it's just dragged on and on, and now April is the target.� I think that's as far as it's going to go, so it should be out by late April.� Not that the music's all written yet. (laughs)

You have a new home page, called the Burial Site.�� What would attract someone to check it out?
I'm not sure what would entice someone to come and visit the Burial Site.� I'm not sure!� It was just an attempt at doing something that wasn't completely dull, something with a bit of humor.� I'm not sure I intended it to turn out as it turned out, to be honest.� I've got a page dedicated to slagging off my home town, which wasn't really the intention.

St. Helens?
St. Helens, yeah.�

You've got kind of a sarcastic tribute to that city.
Yeah, it's a small town, really.� Yeah, St. Helens. (laughs)

It looks like things are collapsing a bit there.
That's the impression you get, yeah.� I've sort of chosen those shots, particularly, to make it look like it's collapsing, to be completely fair.� It's not that bad.� But it is pretty bad. (laughs)

Does your sense of humor run in the family?� Do you get it from your parents?
I don't know, really, where I get it from.� Growing up with my two older brothers is probably where that comes from.�

You have two older brothers, Geoff and Mike.� I know that Geoff worked with you on various Commodore 64 music projects.� And if I'm not mistaken, Mike is also involved in video games.�
Yeah, Mike, so far, is still involved in video games.� He's going to be leaving the industry altogether in a few months.� He's going to become a vicar.� How about that?� He's making a bit of a departure from the world of video games.

Maybe we could talk about your early experiences with music.� Did you have any formal training when you were a child?
No, I didn't have any training.� I think the three of us had some piano lessons.� I think I did about two and got bored.� I went to community college for a year after I left school, but that turned out to be a waste of time, to be honest.� Certainly, as far as the education went it was quite interesting being surrounded by other people doing that.� With regard to the actual course I was on, that was a bit of a joke, really.

What course was that?
They run a few courses.� One was a diploma in light music or jazz, and another one was just a basic, preliminary course.� I didn't get as far as the diploma course.� Very few people actually bothered to complete the courses at the college, but it was an experience.

What were some types of music that you were listening to?
At that point, it was probably Genesis and progressive rock.� I think Mike and Geoff were listening to Rush, and Yes, and Genesis.� I just grew up listening to what they were listening to, to be honest.� The house was always full of that stuff, so I kind of got into it probably by default rather than preference.�

Sure.� It certainly shows in your music.
Yeah, unfortunately.

I would say fortunately.� It kind of stands out, because there are thousands of other people who have composed music on the SID, but not very many employ the sort of progressive style as you do.� That's what turned me on to your SID music at first.� I was like, wow, this really sounds different from what other people are doing--the odd time structures and whatnot, which carry over from your influences of progressive music.
Well, that's a good or a bad thing, depending on your point of view.� Isn't it, really?

For me, it's a good thing!
That's good. (laughs)

What about the rest of your family?� Your parents--are they also musically inclined?
Yeah, I suppose it was quite a musical sort of house.� We had a piano, which sort of set us apart.� Not many people had pianos where we came from, so it was a bit of a luxury to have that sort of thing.� My grandmother had saved up for it at the turn of the century, and then she passed it on to us, and so we all tinkered around on it.�

During the holidays, would your parents make you perform for visitors or anything like that?
Yeah, to be honest.� I was never particularly able to play the kind of thing you'd uncles.� Geoff, I think, probably had a wider range of things that he could play.� Mike never took to the piano, actually; he took to the guitar, primarily.� I'm not sure when he got an electric guitar.� It was probably in his teens.� He got pretty good at it.

Let's talk about the Spectrum, which was the first computer that you began programming on.� You did some musical pieces for that.� What got you interested in it?
Programming, really, more than anything else.� Mike had gotten into the programming thing and I was just copying that, when I was around 13 or 14 and interested in seeing what I could do with the Spectrum.� I suppose the music just sprang out of writing sound routines to make a sort of phasey sound, and eventually that led to writing 3-channel sound routines.� It was purely an experiment to begin with.

And then after the Spectrum you moved on to the Commodore 64.
That was the result of getting a job.� I'd done some music for Mike's early games on the Spectrum, and I was offered a job at the same place Mike was working for at that point.� I was coming to the end of the college year and was pretty certain I didn't want to carry on with that sort of thing, and it came out of the blue, really.�

That was with Insight?
No, that was with Software Creations in Manchester.

Ok.� On your home page you mention a company called Insight.
Yeah.� Now, Insight was the company that Mike worked for.� I think I put on my home page that I worked for Insight; I didn't really.� I kind of called in when I wasn't in school and got paid a pittance for doing the odd tune.� But yeah, Insight was the company that started Mike's career.� It was a local company.

I see.� After Software Creations you were employed by Malibu.
Much later, yeah.� I don't know if Malibu is still alive, actually.� I'm not sure if the comic line is still going.� That's what it was, originally--a comic line.� I don't know anything about that scene, to be honest.� Malibu was kind of an interactive division.� There was a point in the mid nineties where a lot of companies were starting interactive divisions, thinking they could make a quick buck and consequently closing within the year, realizing that you can't just set something up and hope to produce a quality product.�

It hasn't really changed.
People are still doing it?� I thought everyone had learned a lesson and stopped doing that.�

So now you're working as a freelance musician.� Do you prefer it this way to being employed by a company?
Yeah, I do.� I prefer working at home, mostly.� I need to get out during the day, go out and meet someone, and break up the day, because you do start to feel a bit like Jack Nicholson in the Shining. All work and no play. (laughs)� It's good, apart obviously from the insecurity of the cash, you know.� It's a big problem.� I have a problem with doing more than one project at a time; I'm just not made to do that.� For instance, while I've been doing Ecco, I've done a couple of Game Boy projects, which were very short and took a week to do, or probably less than that.� Apart from that, I wouldn't have been able to fit in anything else.� I've got a bit of a problem, which is that come the end of Ecco, I'm not sure what I'm going to be doing.� So, if anyone wants to offer me lots of work...(laughs)

I certainly wouldn't mind seeing some more interest in the Commodore music programming.� People seem to be doing that more for fun these days and not as a career.
Well, that's it.� It's just the fact that it does take a lot of your time up and I'm at that point where I can't afford to spend a lot of time which aren't going to [pay].�

Could you mention any of your favorite SID tunes you've written?
The one everyone keeps sending me e-mails about:� Ghouls and Ghosts, probably because it was the least C-64 sounding project I did, in a way.

A lot of people talk about the Bionic Commando tunes as well.
Do they?�

Yeah, it seems to be very popular.� You actually won an award for that, right?
I did at the time, yeah.� I never felt completely happy about that, though, because a lot of tunes were based on the arcade tunes.� I'd take the start of a tune and extrapolate it, so the starts were all quite similar but where they ended up was usually completely different.�

What do you think about the continuing interest in SID music?� Do you follow the current scene at all?
I wasn't aware that there was a scene at all, you know.� I haven't had an Internet connection for that long and I've not really had any contact with people from the industry.� It was quite a shock when I hooked up to the Internet for the first time--probably a year ago, now--and found all this stuff about the C-64.� Retro pages.� I was quite amazed at the interest.� I wouldn't have thought it would sustain this long.� It's amazing, really, that people see it as something they want to write music for.� I mean, for all that time I was writing music for the C-64, it was a question of the limitations.� I had to do whatever I could within those limitations, and the sooner I could progress, the better.

You felt the limitations were a bit too limiting.
Well, yeah.� It's a funny thing, because once you get your head into it, and this is true whether you're composing or you're listening to it, you do start to see it in a completely different light than the way you first approach it.� I'm sure a lot of people are put off by the sound of the Commodore, like it just sounds like a computer game, you know?� I think that has a lot to do with the fact unless you're completely OK with the limitations, you don't know what you're listening to.� I know that there are a lot of things you can do with the C-64 that I never did.� I don't think I ever used samples.� You can actually play samples, can't you, with a SID?� That's something I didn't bother trying to do, because once I got into it I was quite happy with the limitations as they stood, just the three channels of sound.� It's a bit like, I would imagine, writing for a string section or something.� You know exactly what they can do and what they can't do.� And that's the enjoyment--working within those sort of limitations.� That's the positive side, as well as the downside, the flip-side to the same coin.�

Were you a fan of any particular composers back in the day?� Rob Hubbard, Maniacs of Noise...?
At the time, no, to be honest.

You were just doing your own thing.
I didn't know anything about the C-64 until the boss at Software Creations said, "Have a go at this, this is what you're going to be working on."�� I'd never seen one before, at that point.� I think I listened to one Rob Hubbard tune and thought, well, that's sort of a goal to achieve, technically, that's what people are doing with it and that's what you can get away with.� That was sort of the carrot, you know?� I just didn't listen to much at all; I didn't have the time to listen.� It would have put me off, I think.� I get quite easily taken in by things like that.� If I think someone else is doing something that I didn't think of, I'll just start to get depressed about what I'm doing and try to copy it, which is the worst thing to do.

Are there any conditions under which you prefer composing?
Silence.� That's about it, really.� If it's too nice outside, I just get depressed and want to go out, so a rainy day is probably the best.�

What about your current influences?� What are you listening to at the moment and how would you say they're influencing what you're doing?
I wouldn't say that anything I'm listening to influencing what I'm doing, with the exception, perhaps, of John Adams, the American classical composer.� He's current, still around.� Technically, it's minimalist music, but it's the only minimalist stuff I've heard which struck a chord with me.� That's probably the only stuff I can think of that's directly influencing what I'm doing.� I can't think of anything else that I'm listening to!� That's the problem--when I'm composing stuff, I can't get into something properly.� It was the same problem when I did 64 music.� If I listen to a lot of stuff, I start to lose the grip on what I'm doing too easily.�

That's understandable.� What would you say you're trying to achieve when you create a piece of music?�
Um...the end? (laughs)� Yeah, the end of the music.� It depends on the piece, obviously, and whatever it has to achieve.� I just try to get a concept for what I'm doing first--that's the hardest part--and come up with something original.� The execution is always the easiest part.�

Thank you, too, Tim!
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